50 Free Comic Book Day titles!

If you’re lucky, your store will give you a bundle of comics!

But more likely, you’ll have a limit… both in time (what? this isn’t the line for the 12:15 showing for Civil War?) and number.

What should you grab? Depends on what you like, for starters. But also, you should try something new. That’s the whole idea, to get new readers. (Although, for some reason, DC and Marvel keep preaching to the choir, promoting the latest story arc or event.)

I’m not a critical reviewer of comics. I don’t study themes, or motifs, or symbolism. I just want a good story, preferably something that either gives an instant reaction, or is memorable. I’ve read almost every Free Comic Book Day issue from the past 15 years (approximately 700 issues?), and here’s what I enjoyed this year.

Here are my top five titles (the top ten percent) for 2016:

Honorable Mentions:

I've been writing for The Beat since July of 2010.
I've been reading comics since 1974, collecting since 1984, and spreading the graphic novel gospel since 1994.
I'm a bookseller, a librarian, an amateur scholar, a cool uncle, and a comics evangelist.
Ask me anything!

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Comments

Thanks Torsten for reviews of everything from FCBD! What would be great is if all the other pages were linked on this page or perhaps a new original page. I have no problem finding them all but in sharing them with friends who aren’t comic book regulars, it would be great to have rather than sending them a large list of links.